78 comments:

according to the story at Breitbart (also based on the Daily Mail story it appears), all the girls wanted was to introduce themselves and find out why he doesn't like them. They even told him they thought he did a good job with Sandy.

Word has it that along with the weight loss a personality also changes.

But that could also be more 'human nature'... what Althouse was talking about here...

But that's human nature, and it's optimism, really, to look at what you have and think of reasons why it's good and what you don't have isn't really desirable.Hence, the rich are unhappy, the beautiful ones lack compassion, etc. etc.

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Absolutely. Whenever a Republican starts getting fawned over by the media, you can bet that he/she is a dick or crunt that will back stab the conservative section of the Republican voters. You might as well just have a Democrat. At least you KNOW who your enemy is and where he is coming from.

Back stabbing, self serving, suck up, weasels. Pretending to be one thing when they are really just a snake in the grass. Pretend that they are on your side, when they are laughing at you when you aren't there. Taking sincerity, honesty and principles of the voters and using it against you. SUCKERS!

You know, Christie really makes a good first impression. Weight loss is a factor though. He's got a nice family as well. Yeah, he would probably be Dem's fav Republican. And obviously, as well, there was cross-over for Obama.

Hi. good morning. Happy Memorial day weekend. I hope everyone has a nice one.

I had my oil changed yesterday and while I was waiting.. I picked up the GQ magazine on the table. 2013 - and the damn hack magazine was filled with mean-spirited jokes about George Bush.The left really are out of ideas.

Lem: In college at the University of Delaware, Christie was not obese but his personality seems to be about the same. From the few interviews I've seen, Mary Pat seems pretty much her same self, too. I suspect Chris will be Chris at whatever weight.

What I find endlessly entertaining is in many ways both DBQ and Baron Zemo (among a couple others) remind me, personality wise so far as I know them online, remind me a lot of the Chris I knew--and argued with and laughed with, in real life back in the day. I kid you NOT!!!

However, the comparison between Romney and Christie is complete, total bullshit, and very unfair to Romney, who unlike that fat traitor Christie, is a good guy, who never tried to ingratiate himself with the media by embracing Democrats and attacking his own party. Nor was Romney ever the "Democrats favorite Republican". Dems who voted in the GOP primaries, actually voted heavily for Santorum over Romney.

Romney was the best shot the GOP had in 2012- he outperformed most of the GOP Senate candidates- and he would probably be president today if the IRS scandal hadn't been covered up until after the election.

I'm not seeing any confrontation in this video. The governor seemed friendly and polite.

That's because you don't know anything about women. Or politicians.

I think it's hilarious that New Jersey is concerned about its image and not coming across "classy" enough because of the show. But in fairness, there was a clarification by someone that these punks were all New York kids, and had nothing to do with New Jersey before they were cast.

It was funny watching Christie give a quick glance to eyeball J-Woww up and down. He must have held off for so long. At the time he was probably thinking that she'd go well with a nice funnel cake.

I've given up on most media outlets because of their relentless propaganda.

But people must still read them and watch them. NPR remains steadfastly leftist, and donations continue apace.

And what would you suggest for balance? A piece on the under-reported good side of a 5-year old boy shooting his brother? How unrestrained and inchoate rage against Obama is healthy? The under-appreciated ways in which the Soviet empire is still in control of half of America?

You are so funny. So quaint. So wistful and elegiac. So obviously unaware of how badly the right wing constantly screws itself.

Man, are you sure you're not being sarcastic? D-Rods thought Mitt was the perfect embodiment of all that was wrong with the Republicans, in the thinnest of glassy shells obscuring it. No offense to whatever niceness anyone might see in him, but he was the perfect herald of doom. A time of widespread crisis, and the closest they could come to conjuring up anyone who cares was a guy too focused on holding together a fractured base to even pretend to give a damn about the not already-rich.

Ritmo you must not have been around at the last election. Concern troll after concern troll told us that Romney was the only Republican that could possibly be acceptable and that there was chance that they would vote for him. It was a simply ploy to get someone who would not fight hard against the Obama machine.

It's like voting for Mets players for the All-Star team. You want to vote for losers so your team can win.

Mitt had the best chance out of all of them. The fact that he still didn't win (despite having a chance), wasn't the media's fault. The right's making a mistake by saying that their problem is or was not going conservative enough. Definitely not concern "trolling" here, just being straight up. The best ones who'd have been palatable and electable (at least before 2008) would have been strong, decent moderates. 2008 changed the game a bit, though, so it's hard to say.

Reagan was an anomaly. Near FDR-like in stature, but in general the middle shies away from ideologues. There won't be another Reagan. There won't be another FDR. FDR was an anomaly too. As was Lincoln, etc. The times just aren't right for either. Obama's making a slow slog of some swing-back to the left, but he won't reimplement FDR. Neither will the right get to reimplement Reagan. That's just the way it goes.

I wish I could name some moderate compromisers who would be good for your guys, but right now they're all sounding whiny. Maybe a former Virginia governor or senator would sound about right. I dunno. But I'd say to stay away from frontiersmen from anywhere west of the Mississippi or too deep in the Old South. I'm just not getting the impression that culture wars will play for much longer any more.

It was a simply ploy to get someone who would not fight hard against the Obama machine.

But how could you call it a ploy? He had the most presidential electioneering seniority, and that counts for a lot on the right. Plus, he had the best teams and advisors money could buy. He had incredible advantages... Also the slickest (looking) one there. Don't get too down... the time's just weren't right. Obama even got to fluff a shot or a debate or two... The time's just weren't right. They'll get their day. I agree, a Southern Hispanic might play well, but then again seem too much like a novelty/token. Better chances with a midwesterner. Best chances, someone from Maine or New Hampshire, though. A New Yorker would be too liberal and, you're right, would come across too up-front (or "abrasive", lol) for the rest. But Those are your best regions. Northern New England or Midwest.

Mitt was portrayed as a businessman not one of those icky social conservatives like Palin or Santorum. So many concern trolls pretend that he was an option. Which he never was. Which Christie will never be.

Huge uphill battle in 2012 for the right. Social ideological concerns finally took a backseat to economics, and you either felt that a businessman was going to turn the country around because running the country like a business was a good idea, or you felt that looking at citizens as we would laborers who could, rightly or wrongly, be outsourced, was only going to make things worse.

Obama is a triumph of marketing. Certainly not any accomplishments that he might have had before he was President or in his first term. He won because he was a "clean articulate imaginary black boyfriend."

We needed to attack that image. Mitt was not up to that. He was either too polite or too scared or too afraid of what the "right" people will say.

Attacking would have worked because Obama is a thin skinned prick and you need to get him to show his real personality. You can't let him rise above the fray. Bring him down to earth and out of the clouds. You needed to hammer him on Benghazi, on his non-enforcement of the nations laws due to racial preferences, his overreach in Obama care and his many many failings.

He is Carmelo Anthony. You need to get into his head to throw him off his game and get to react instead of letting him take his shots on his own time.

Of course no one is ever going to say that Michelle tastes like Honey Nut Cheerios.

Obama gets pissed when people's motives aren't genuine. He is much more reserved than Hillary, and even laughed when McCain lost his cool debating him in 2008. Bobby Kennedy was a good guy. I have a hard time seeing him as remorseless. He was probably pissed about his brother getting killed, carried a chip on his shoulder about it, maybe; I think lumping in remorselessness with simple determination is a mistake. I also think conservatives like Hillary because they think they'll be able to get under her skin more easily - which is a political failing/flaw of hers, but I don't see how that alone humanizes her or anyone else. Relating to people comes in degrees; it's not always or usually an all-or-nothing thing. I've learned, for instance, over time to not take something personally or at least not as personally when it seems clear to me that someone is acting out an issue of their own and that nothing I say or do will matter about it.

Christie I also thought was a prick - especially since he would go telling people in a New Jersey audiences that they were an "idiot!", etc. Politicians just don't, and shouldn't do this. However, the voters think that the upshot of this is that he is at least willing to be more honest with them, so maybe that's worth appreciating.

"Nice" people don't always do the right thing. Manners are good, good intentions are better. Maybe Reagan thought it was "nice" to ignore the annoying AIDS activists but then once his old (closeted) gay friend Rock Hudson died, all of a sudden those dying of the same catastrophic illnesses were worthy (to him) of addressing. It's fine to argue for personal responsibility, but being intentionally deaf to those who simply ask for compassion makes me wonder if someone's taking things too far or has something to hide.

I don't think it is "niceness" as much as equanimity in behavior. I don't Reagan cared all that much about what his critics had to say about him since they were relentless and cruel in a way not seen until the Bill Clinton days of Republican attacks.

Obama is a smug self righteous entitled hater who got where he is with the thinnest resume of any President this side of Millard Fillmore.

At least Millard started those two great rock clubs he sold to Bill Graham.

I don't think it is "niceness" as much as equanimity in behavior. I don't Reagan cared all that much about what his critics had to say about him since they were relentless and cruel in a way not seen until the Bill Clinton days of Republican attacks.

Obama is a smug self righteous entitled hater who got where he is with the thinnest resume of any President this side of Millard Fillmore.

Interesting to bring up equanimity. I don't think Obama cares about what his critics say about him any more than Reagan did his - even if he realizes the fall-out of widespread public belief in them could be worse. You rightly point out the cruelty and relentlessness of attacks on Clinton, and perhaps Obama just doesn't think that taking those same sorts of attacks as personally as Clinton did (as much as he pretended not to) will do anything for him. We all know that making him the angry/dangerous guy will be marketing toxicity... He refuses to give into it. That's a good thing, unless having that stereotype handily available to perpetuate is a difficult thing to let go of. And I do think that being the object of a trap like that will really put someone through the test. It can't be easy to put it aside so often; maybe that's why when those flashes of emotional constipation/consternation show through it's easy to say: "He's spiteful". Nah, he's just biting his tongue. Strongly. I've seen better men do the same.

Bobby Kennedy was his brothers enforcer and regarding early on in his career as a lot like his good friend Joe McCarthy who was asshole buddies with his Dad the Ambassador.

Well, loyalty is important in a family as big as his. So were political alliances.

Bobby was universally described as a hatchet man and a prick until his image was brushed up when he ran for President.

I don't doubt that he was more complex and less unidimensional than that. I really have a hard time believing that all the humanness he showed in 1968 was fake. He realized he had nothing left to lose. The times were different and the stakes were greater. He had lost a lot and came to a point in his life where he identified less with family duty and more with the need of a troubled nation to be calmed. At least, that's what I think.

Some things about people are simple (like this place, for instance, prime example) ;-) ... but do you always believe that no one is ever more complicated than that?

Oh I totally agree that people change over time. Loss and life can really change how someone sees life. We all know that.

I agree that Bobby Kennedy most likely changed a great deal because of what happened to his brother. But underneath he was the same tough guy who deported Carlos Marcello to Guatemala without trial. Bobby would have signed right on to rendition and Gitmo you can have no doubt.

The thing about Reagan was his age and his experiences in life gave him some perspective. He had won and he had lost. Something that Obama sorely lacks. Obama can not put himself in the shoes of a small business man. He can fake it pretty good but his own words betray him when he said he wanted to "spread" the wealth around. He is true big government tax and spend liberal. The purest one we have had since LBJ.

Obama is simply the product of affirmative action and the savage destruction of his political opponents who could not or would not fight back. (See his record in his primary and Senate races)

You got a taste of this when he ran against Hillary and posited that Bill and Hill were racists. Imagine that? I remember when the Dems were calling Bill our "first black President. They backed off instead of doubling down. It would have been very interesting if the Clinton machine went after Obama the way they did....oh I don't know...Paula Jones or somebody like that.

History will regard him as one of worst Presidents. Somewhere between Carter and Buchanan.

It would have been very interesting if the Clinton machine went after Obama the way they did....oh I don't know...Paula Jones or somebody like that.

What makes you think they wouldn't have or didn't? Just because they might not believe something doesn't mean they wouldn't have used it for political gain, to rile others up. (The right over-reached on that, but I really did come to believe that they were right to some degree on how sleazy and opportunistic they were. I feel that the Clintons think that if they can get you to believe something, it might as well be true). But it does mean that someone more powerful than Paula Jones might have an easier time calling them out on it. The shades of gray cut both ways and I never did (and still don't) believe that Bill Clinton (and Hillary) were above being sleazy in how they'd go after people. In that sense, I'm glad she and Bill didn't win (again), much as you and so many others truly hate Obama.

I read something about how one of Hillary's advisors/professors was truly shocked at how zealously insane and frenzied with power she got in some kind of student forum/hearing on Watergate. That shocked and shocks me, but I wasn't surprised. For some reason I could always see that in her, and think it's a shame that someone would have danced so maniacally on the political grave of a man who, however paranoid (if patriotic), simply made some mistakes - whereas I can't in Obama (except with drones - but I think that's a good thing ;-)). I couldn't see it in FDR either, much as he famously riled up the same enmity.

Well Bill and Hill were stopped in their tracks when Obama played the race card. As he did with Geraldine Ferraro. Bill wasn't going to go to mattresses for Hillary. They figured let it slide. They must have thought that Obama was going to lose and they could get the nomination the next time up. That took away the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton succession that would give anybody pause.

They just miscalculated because a one term Senator with no record won.

So, what would have been a "fair" way for Obama to win? It seems that he is either accused of being incompetent or ruthless (which seem contradictory), so where would the middle ground for him be? How would you have advised him, either in reaction to Bill's claim of anything about him being a "fairy tale" (but surely not in a racist way) or anything else?

For a supposed incompetent, he sure seems to win a lot.

Gotta run to a pizza-movie-date but I'll probably check back later (or at least chat more on your space) and glad you're feeling better. Thanks for the feedback.

You can be both incompetent and ruthless. Look at North Korea. They are not mutually exclusive.

I don't blame Obama for winning or even criticize the way he did it. He has successfully gamed the system for his entire career. I criticize those who did not treat him because of the content of his character instead of the color of his skin.

Hillary lost her nerve. She was more afraid of being termed a racist then of taking the game to Obama.

Anyway that was the last war. Obama can't run again. So we will have a new candidate. And it won't be Hillary. Or Cuomo. Or any of the current suspects. It will be somebody new. Who it is hard to see right now.